Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix of Google

Lita M. Holdeman

University of Phoenix

MGT 421: Marketing

Course BSM0560C

Nick Okoro

May 3, 2008

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Marketing Mix Definition 3

Product 4

Price 5

Promotion 6

PlaceвЂ¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦Ð²Ð‚¦.6

Conclusion 7

References 8

Google founded in the dorm room of two Stanford University students in 1995. Larry Page and Sergey Brin did not see eye to eye, their strong opinions and difference of viewpoints would lead to common ground in solving one of the biggest challenges of retrieving relevant information from a massive set of data of the internet world (Google, 2008).

Google is now one of the most popular search engine and the reason for success is an innovative marketing plan. Google differs from the dot.com era of the 90s in where the employees developed a tool needed by everyone who had connection. Google finding their niche in the market and following the path of innovation of marketing has become the popular company everyone knows today (Google, 2008).

Google has more uses than meet the eye, with text ads help boost sites that are willing to pay for clicks to their websites. Google search allows for search for images, shopping, news, maps, gmail, and conversion calculators. Google uses the marketing mix in its marketing plan as an advantage over its competitors.

The author of the paper will define the marketing mix and relate the four P’s to the company of Google. The author will discuss how the marketing strategy and plan has made Google the successful company it is today.

Marketing Mix

The term marketing mix became popular in 1964 when Neil H. Borden published his article The Concept of the Marketing Mix. He began using the term while teaching in the 1940s after James Culliton described the marketing manager as a “mixer of ingredients.” The ingredients in Borden’s marketing mix included, product, planning, pricing, branding, distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, promotions, packaging, displaying, servicing, physical handling, fact finding and analysis. E. Jerome McCarthy later grouped them into four categories that today are known as the four Ps. The four Ps of the marketing mix is product, price, promotion, and place (NetMBA, 2007).

“Marketing mix is the controllable variables the company puts together to satisfy this target group” (Perrault & McCarthy, 2005, p. 36). The website of NetMBA (2007) states, “The 4 Ps are the parameters in which a manager can control, subject to internal and external constraints of the marketing environment. The goal is to make decisions that center the 4 P’s on the customer in the target market in order to create perceived value and generate a positive response” (para 2). The marketing mix is like a cake mix; a cake mix has eggs, wheat, flour, and sugar but adding more sugar the cake becomes sweeter. The same is true with the marketing mix, the product you offer customers can alter by varying the mix elements, and for example, a high profile brand a company might increase the focus on the promotion and desensitize the weight given to the price (Marketing Teacher, 2000-2008). “The marketing mix consists of everything the firm can do to influence the demand for its product” (Armstrong & Kotler, 2007. p. 52).

Product

According to Armstrong and Kotler (2007), “product means the goods-and-services combination the company offers to the target market.” The product Google offers are services such as search engine and advertising. Google categorizes their products into three classes: Advertising Solutions, Business Solutions, and the Google Store.

The advertising solutions, Google offers AdWords, such text-based advertising that are precise to the search and every time individuals click on the site, the company pays Google.

In the Business Solutions, Google offers companies a search appliance for employees conducting searches the internet by bringing in Google’s search technology and intranet to their clients. Google provides the hardware and the software for the customers and has three models to choose from based on size and types of companies (Castelarhost.com, 2007).

The last product Google offers is The Google Store. The store sells tangible items such as shirts, notebooks, bags, caps, almost anything they can print their company’s name on (Castelarhost.com, 2005)

Price

Armstrong and Kotler (2007) state, “Price is the amount of money customers have to pay to obtain the product” (p. 52). Successful companies like Google take into consideration list price, discounts, allowances, payment periods, and credit terms. These items work together in setting the price of merchandise. Google’s price for AdWords is set on the amount of advertisement per day it provides its consumers. “In Google’s case the list price is at five cents per day, however it can go as high as $50.00 per day. The price difference will depend on the amount of advertisement per day that the consumers are willing to pay and the amount of times individuals click to see the ads and how high these ads rank on a search page” (Castelarhost.com, 2005).

Discount